by Eve Paludan
WOLF MOON
by
EVE PALUDAN
Kingsley Fulcrum, Werewolf for Hire #1
Wolf Moon
Published by Rain Press
Copyright © 2018 by Rain Press
All rights reserved.
Ebook Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
(Wolf Moon is based on the characters created by J.R. Rain; the use of story situations and supporting characters from the “Vampire for Hire” universe is authorized by J.R Rain.)
Acknowledgments
J.R. Rain, thank you for creating Samantha Moon, the most compelling vampire since Dracula, and for creating Kingsley Fulcrum, the werewolf of her dreams.
Tracy Seybold, you are the editor’s editor. Thank you for all of your hard work.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Other Books by Eve Paludan
About the Author
Wolf Moon
Chapter 1
I was chatting on the phone with my girlfriend, Samantha Moon—private eye, mom, and vampire.
She was being coy. I was being sexy. Then, I got serious. I balanced a small, black velvet box on one index finger and told her, “Everything’s been going so great with us. I want to take our relationship to the next level.”
After a pause, she replied, “Kingsley, my heart is torn.”
For a moment, I sat there, stunned. “Torn? What does that mean?”
Sam hung up on me.
That was not the response I’d expected. When I tried to call her back, my call went to her voicemail, which got my hackles up. I hung up.
She was driving me crazy. Howling crazy.
Or maybe I was driving her crazy.
Either way, Mars and Venus had nothing on us. Werewolf and vampire? Now, there were some opportunities for misunderstandings.
I texted her: Would you please come over?
Sam texted back: I have to pick up the kids at 3:30.
I texted: After school?
She texted back: Boxing lesson.
I texted: When can we see each other?
She texted back: I don’t know. I’m torn.
There was that word again. I growled in frustration and called her. This time, when she didn’t answer, I left a voicemail: “Sam, is there someone else? Is that what you meant by ‘torn’?”
I hung up and sat there, hurting and angry.
Not five minutes after I hung up, and without my phone ringing, I got a voicemail from Sam: “How can you, of all people, ask me if there’s someone else? Obviously, you don’t know me at all. Goodbye, Kingsley.”
I got ditched on voicemail. Voicemail!
I took slow, deep breaths and resisted the temptation to throw my phone across the room.
As I walked to my floor safe and pulled up the rug covering it, I thought about how Sam possessed this power to seduce me by doing nothing more than saying my name in a breathy whisper. I spun the combination, stashed the surprise engagement ring and locked the safe.
As I pulled the rug back in place over the floor safe, I thought about what an idiot I was.
The signals of her pulling away had been there. I’d just ignored them. Sometimes, when I told her I loved her, she’d often leave me in a rush with a slam of her minivan door and her tires squealing away—her priorities were her kids and her investigations. I understood and accepted that I was lower on her list, but what I hadn’t thought through was how, whenever things got too emotional, Sam retreated from my pursuit and I wouldn’t see her for days. Or maybe she was just running from how much I hated that control freak dwelling inside her.
Whenever I thought we were moving toward something bigger, that dark entity in Sam would rise up and do something to spoil it, like stab me with a fork for cheating on her. I’d cheated once! Would she never let me forget it?
Lately, Sam seemed to want to punish me and then woo me as the mood struck her. The thought also crossed my mind that I allowed her to torment me.
When my phone rang again, I answered it without looking at the display. “What can I do to make you happy? Just tell me.”
“Hi. I’m looking for Kingsley Fulcrum, attorney?” Instead of Samantha’s voice, I heard the melodic voice of an unfamiliar woman.
Okay, that was embarrassing. “I’m Kingsley Fulcrum. Sorry, I thought you were someone else.”
“No worries,” she said. “I’m Jolie Hart, spelled H-A-R-T. I need a lawyer, and you came highly recommended.”
“Wonderful. What are the charges against you?” I got out a yellow legal pad and my Waterman pen.
“Charges?” she echoed.
“I’m a defense attorney. If someone recommended me, I presume you’re in criminal trouble.”
“I haven’t been arrested. I need a contract attorney. An entertainment contract attorney.”
“I’ve done entertainment contract work, but my specialty is criminal defense. Of course, when it comes to the entertainment industry, there’s a certain amount of overlap.”
She didn’t laugh at my lawyer joke.
“I really need you, specifically. How do I say this? I need someone who is a part of the paranormal world.”
My heartbeat increased. “Who referred you?”
“My friend, Fang.”
“Fang,” I said. Fang and I had kicked the asses of some vampire enemies of Sam’s, one of whom had killed her ex-husband, Danny Moon. Fang was an ally. Of course, there was a strong possibility that he was Sam’s backup love interest, which made me jealous as hell of him. However, it never hurts to have a powerful vampire on your side.
“How do you know Fang?” I asked. I wondered if he was more than her friend.
“I’m a member of his blood club in Echo Park. It’s all consensual, I swear.”
I cringed. “You’re a donor?”
“No, a consumer. I have a punch card. I get every tenth drink free.”
“I see.” I digested that information with a little trepidation.
“I really need your help, Mr. Fulcrum. I have no one else to turn to.”
There was such a begging note in her voice that I gave in. I’m easy like that. “If possible, we should meet today. My office across from Main Place Mall is being redecorated, so I’m using my home office this month.”
“I’m already in Yorba Linda,” she said.
“Where?” I asked, surprised.
“The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.”
I gave her my address and told her to come over. We hung up.
I sat in shock in the home office of my estate on Bastanchury Boulevard, waiting for my new client to show up.
My vampire client.
Chapter 2
When my butler, Franklin, ushered in Jolie Hart, my heartbe
at instantly increased. Another part of me also sprang to attention. Luckily, I was sitting behind a desk. Like the dirty dog I am, I let myself have an eyeful of her before I spoke.
Jolie Hart had a platinum mane of hair that rippled like there was a breeze in the room. Her wide blue eyes looked like they had never seen sin. A pert mouth completed the effect, with a prominent Cupid’s bow that hinted at sexual intent but didn’t advertise it.
Below the neck, she was a demoness.
Sweet mama. All of Jolie glided as a unit. Her long legs and shapely butt contributed to her graceful entrance.
“Welcome. Please have a seat.” I gestured to a leather wingback visitor’s chair and tried not to salivate.
She sat and crossed a leg demurely in that way where a woman not only crosses her leg over her other leg, but under it as well. That entwined look always killed me.
Her black leather miniskirt rode up a thigh, and her red crop top let me have a peek at her tanned abs. It was hard to tear my gaze away. She was the most tanned vampire I’d ever seen, and I was sure it wasn’t a spray tan.
Like my on-and-off vampire girlfriend, Samantha Moon, Jolie Hart had real breasts, something I didn’t see much of in my business. Long before they had need of my attorney services, most of my female clients had already seen a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon or two. Jolie Hart, however, was one hundred percent the real thing. Too bad she was undead. Not that such things deterred me all that much.
Franklin had followed her. I’d been so busy watching her that I’d barely noticed him. He placed a guitar case next to her on the floor.
“Tea, sir?” Franklin asked me.
“Miss Hart?” I waited for her reaction to my patchwork butler.
She turned to Franklin with genuine compassion, not the horror I expected. He was a hot mess to behold, given that he was a living, breathing jigsaw puzzle of body parts, sewn together long ago by a mad scientist whose needlework was even worse than his ethics.
“Mr. Franklin, do you have bottled water?”
“We do, Miss Hart. We have chilled Evian, San Pellegrino, and Tasmanian Rain.”
“I’d like a Tasmanian Rain, please. No glass. Just the bottle.”
“Very good.” Franklin turned his patchwork face to me. “Sir, for you?”
“The same.” It was pricey, but I did enjoy drinking chilled Australian rain that had never touched the ground.
After Franklin left the room, we regarded each other. I half-rose over the desk. “Kingsley Fulcrum.”
“Jolie Hart.”
“You have a lovely speaking voice.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you mind if I make a video of our conversation to keep the facts straight as you report them and not as I interpret them?”
“Fine with me, but you won’t be able to see my face on camera as I’m a vampire.”
“No worries. I am more interested in having a record of what you have to say. Nice to meet you, by the way.”
“Likewise,” she replied.
I turned on the video camera that was mounted on a tripod behind my desk and walked over to gently shake her slender, graceful hand in my own big paw. I clasped it gently, let go of that soft hand, sat back down and adjusted myself behind the desk.
Those baby-blue eyes looked at me in wonder. “You’re so big.”
I nearly choked at where her eyes were tracking, but I recovered my composure quickly. “Werewolves do grow bigger, slowly, over the years. With each turning, just a millimeter here and there.” I held back a wink, only because I knew better than to flirt with a client.
“I’m glad vampires don’t get bigger,” she said. “I like being a size six. I can shop anywhere. You have to get your clothes custom made?”
“I do.”
“Your tailor is good. You look nice.”
“You seem surprised,” I said.
“You’re not what I expected from Fang’s description. He made you sound like a big ogre. But you’re breathtaking.”
I couldn’t help being pleased at her compliment. I shook my head of thick, dark hair that cascaded almost to my shoulders. “Fang. What can I say? He’s a little jealous of me.”
“I’m sure. I didn’t expect you to be super-handsome.”
Now, I raised my hand to make her stop.
She got the hint. She smiled to expose perfect white teeth. That pert mouth of hers suddenly seemed filled with the promise of sexual intent.
Franklin chose that moment to come in with our bottles of Tasmanian Rain. He set them on coasters with small linen napkins next to them. We thanked Franklin and he left us.
“What can I do for you today, Miss Hart?”
“Call me Jolie.”
“Done,” I said. “Call me Kingsley.”
She nodded. “Kingsley, I stupidly signed a music contract without first consulting a professional.”
“No.” Just hearing that piqued my interest. Truth to tell, I loved a legal challenge like this.
“Yes. I’m told I was apparently so excited about the limited-time offer that I jumped on it.”
“Sign first, ask questions later?” I asked.
“I’m afraid so. Now, the guy who basically owns me is about to invoke some of the contract clauses that I never dreamed he would.”
“Nobody can own you. He might own rights to your music, but he can’t own you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” A big tear splashed out of one blue eye. “He owns me.”
My hands tightened into fists. “Who is he?”
“A vampire who asked me to call him Morrie, but that isn’t really his name.”
“What is it?”
“Technically, I think his name is Beelzebub.”
“The devil, you say.” I’m quick-witted like that.
She didn’t smile.
Chapter 3
“Before I look at the contract, why don’t you tell me about it?” I urged Jolie.
“What do you want to know?”
“Why you signed it.”
“The good parts.”
“Which good parts?” I fought the urge to click my teeth impatiently.
“I was given a vintage guitar with some sort of magic spell on it. Whatever song is played on it is going to be a hit.”
Poor thing. She must have been born yesterday. “Tell me more.”
She frowned a bit. “I wrote a song, and Morrie gave me additional notes to tack onto the end. I’m not exactly on board with that, but it’s only a few bars. The rest is completely my composition.”
“Curious,” I said. “Why would he make you do that to the end of your song?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged off that question. “I really like the part in the contract about getting to make a record with guaranteed distribution, not just on online download sites, but physical products in retail stores. I also get a music video, promotions and advertising, and the best thing: my debut concert will be in Vegas at Caesars Palace.”
“You’re kidding.” I was floored.
“You can see why I would sign up for this nightmare.”
I could understand it. I wouldn’t have been stupid enough to sign it, but I could see how someone else might. “Which parts of the contract don’t you like?”
Jolie hesitated. “I had to give up whatever life I had before. I don’t even know what that life was because my memory was wiped. I must have agreed to that, too. I don’t even remember signing the contract.”
“Heinous,” I said.
“There’s more. At the end of my performance in Vegas at Caesars Palace, they plan to shove someone else’s entity in me and make me into a super-vampire of some sort, one that can shape-shift into something else.” She paused. “And fly.”
Alarm bells went off in my head. “Please continue.”
“After I get my parasite in me, or symbiont, whatever it’s called, I have to marry Morrie, naked, in some creepy, cultish ceremony in front of a group of V.I.P. vampires. I will then be
proclaimed queen of the vampire underworld.”
I was speechless, mostly at how casually she’d tacked on the last part. “No.”
“I’m not done. I have to let a coven of record producers bite me and suck my blood. Some of them aren’t even vampires.” She shuddered.
“Good Lord.”
“Exactly,” she said.
She’d been pathetically naïve. I tore my gaze away from her trembling, lush lips and snapped back to business. “I want to take an uninterrupted look at this contract. Would you like to step into my chill room and relax?”
“What’s a chill room?”
“I’ll show you.” I opened one of the secret doors in the panels of my office’s wainscoting and beckoned her to follow me. When we were both in the room beyond, I shut the door behind us and it seemed to disappear into the wall. Franklin was the only other soul who knew of this room.
Jolie looked around her in wonder. “Wow!”
My chill room had high ceilings with simulated mountain scenery, including a pine-spruce scent, a moon with adjustable phases, twinkling constellations on an infinite-appearing sky, and a burbling stream that recycled drinkable spring water. Best of all, a wolf’s den was lined with a lambskin-covered mattress and a few special pillows from the Hustler store on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.
I climbed high on a promontory that was actually thick fiberglass sprayed over a wire frame and painted to look like granite. It jutted out over a fake sheer cliff to reveal holographic views of moonlit alpine meadows. I patted the fake rock next to me and gave her a hand up.
She sat so close that I could smell the more intimate perfumes of her body. She smelled like a combination of cotton candy and carnations. I closed my eyes and just inhaled her.
She tapped my shoulder, and I opened my eyes and turned my head toward hers. Her minty breath was inches away.
“How did you make this chill room?” she asked innocently. Like a child would.
But she was no child. I leaned in toward the beautiful blonde, wolf that I am. “It’s a combination of IMAX engineering, a domed mini-planetarium and a little Disney-ish magic.” I said to the ceiling, “Computer. Full moon phase.” The crescent moon gradually turned to a full moon, and I gave a little howl to impress her.